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Federal probe into Karen Read case has ended, prosecutor says
“There is no longer any federal investigation into the investigation of John O’Keefe’s death or any related matters,” special prosecutor Hank Brennan announced Tuesday.
A federal investigation into the state’s handling of the Karen Read case has wrapped, special prosecutor Hank Brennan confirmed in court Tuesday.
Brennan said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts recently shared the news with the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting Read in the 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.
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In their Feb. 19 conversation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office “made clear that I could inform the court there is no longer any federal investigation into the investigation of John O’Keefe’s death or any related matters,” Brennan said. “It is closed. It is over.”
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Canton Police Chief Helena Rafferty also released a statement Tuesday confirming she received the same information.
“I recently spoke to and was informed by the US Attorney’s office, that ALL ASPECTS of the federal investigation, initiated by her predecessor and related to the death of John O’Keefe, have been completed,” Rafferty said. “The investigation is no longer active and will be closed. Due to ethical limitations, I cannot comment further.”
Federal authorities never publicly acknowledged the investigation and have not announced any charges or arrests to date.
Karen Read’s busy week in court
With less than a month to go before the start of her highly anticipated retrial, Read returned to court Tuesday for the first of several hearings slated for this week. The spate of court appearances comes after Read’s attorneys butted heads with prosecutors in a contentious hearing last week, disputing allegations they coordinated improperly with crash reconstructionists who testified for the defense last summer.
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Engineering consulting firm ARCCA Inc. was initially hired by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as part of its federal probe, and jurors in Read’s first trial were led to believe the company’s experts were working independently and hadn’t been paid by the defense. Read’s team admitted last week to paying the ARCCA experts nearly $24,000 following her mistrial last July, though they maintained the payment was above board and intended as reimbursement for the experts’ time and travel expenses.
Judge Beverly Cannone has yet to say whether she believes Read’s attorneys acted improperly.
Prosecutors say Read, 45, backed her SUV into O’Keefe in a drunken rage while dropping him off at a fellow officer’s home in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022. Her lawyers contend she was framed in a law enforcement coverup, and that O’Keefe entered 34 Fairview Road for an afterparty and was severely beaten, attacked by the homeowner’s dog, and left outside in the snow.
Read has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Her first trial ended with a hung jury last July, and jury selection for her retrial is due to begin April 1.
Read’s lawyers levied attacks on two of the prosecution’s proposed experts Tuesday, including James W. Crosby, a canine behavioral consultant expected to counter testimony from a defense expert who believes O’Keefe was wounded by a dog. Defense attorney Robert Alessi zeroed in on Crosby’s qualifications and methodology.
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“Admittedly, indisputably, Dr. Crosby is not a medical doctor. As a matter of fact, Dr. Crosby is not a veterinarian. He’s not a forensic odontologist,” Alessi said. “And those are all disciplines that can even get near the type of subject matter that he’s looking to opine about.”
Brennan defended Crosby’s qualifications and said he’s often called to attend autopsies to examine wounds and determine whether they were inflicted by a dog.
Alessi also questioned whether meteorologist Robert Gilman is qualified to testify about how hard the ground was outside 34 Fairview Road around the time O’Keefe died. However, Brennan said prosecutors do not need Gilman to say how hard the ground was, as emergency personnel who responded to the scene can offer lay opinions.
In a separate motion seeking sanctions against Read’s team, Brennan accused the defense of publicly disclosing impounded materials — namely, a message embattled Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor sent Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally disparaging defense attorney Alan Jackson. Brennan called for a gag order for Read’s attorneys and suggested defense motions be filed under seal moving forward, to be made public only after review.
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“I submit that the ongoing, deliberate, purposeful poisoning of the potential jury pool is not only wrong and unfair, it needs to be stopped,” Brennan said. “And this last incident of taking a private email under a protective order and putting it in a pleading for the world to see is just yet another example. It’s one small step in the marathon.”
Defense attorney David Yannetti said including Proctor’s message was an oversight on his part, and the off-limits information “got by” him. However, he argued the disclosure did not jeopardize Proctor’s safety and was thematically consistent with the lead investigator’s previously disclosed texts disparaging Read and Yannetti.
Motion to dismiss, federal hearing on deck for Wednesday
With the new trial on the horizon, defense attorneys filed a motion last week to dismiss the case against Read, alleging “extraordinary governmental misconduct.” They’ve accused prosecutors of suppressing certain video of Read’s SUV at the Canton Police Department and misleading jurors with an inverted video clip shown at her first trial, among other claims.
Prosecutors fired back in their own court filing, disputing “any ethical violations or misconduct, let alone misconduct that taints the legal system or infringes upon the defendant’s right to a fair trial.” They also accused the defense of “brazen misrepresentation” regarding claims of purported jury tampering by the prosecution last summer.
Both sides will return to Norfolk Superior Court Wednesday to argue the motion to dismiss and other defense requests.
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Read is also scheduled to appear in federal court for a hearing Wednesday morning. Her lawyers have filed a habeas corpus claim in U.S. District Court in Boston, asking a federal judge to drop two of her charges after they say jurors in her first trial unofficially agreed to acquit her of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. The state’s Supreme Judicial Court recently rejected Read’s appeal to dismiss the two charges, unswayed by the defense’s claim that a retrial would violate Read’s double jeopardy protections.
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
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